Content advisory: refsheet contains nudity and canine anatomy

My “art” very much the definition of programmer art. I have not yet found the motivation to put the necessary time in to draw, model or anything creative. But I want a fursuit and I certainly cannot afford to commission one so making one it is! This will be an account of learning to make a fursuit, for anyone also considering it and also a reminder to me of the effort it required.

Fortunately, sometime I go, I finalised the design of Az (me, in fox form) so can skip the tedium of designing a fursona again. Next is the matter of refsheet. As previously mentioned, I have zero artistic ability but I do have my VRChat avatar I retextured sometime ago in Substance Painter.

I searched for VRChats worlds which could create a refsheet with my avatar, found a few but none of them did what I wanted or looked less than ideal so ended up asking and someone mentioned the The Avatar Studio ｜ Avatown which did exactly what I needed. The resolution of the final image is questionable and slightly blurry even using the 4K option but it does the job.

Fursona Refsheet showing front, back and side view

The colours where already picked out so it was only a matter matching them to closest* faux fur colour I could find. Or the Closest ones I can order from a UK supplier since I don’t want to send a single penny to pay for the US tariffs. I used Fursuit Materials to find local suppliers and ended up settling on Carniv Creations since I had already ordered stuff from their Etsy page where they had high ratings.

Now for the part I dreaded, matching the colours from their RGB values to the closest fur colour. At least the choice of colours was small but anything that involves colours, I am hopelessly clueless on so made an educated guess which furs to go with.

In the end I ended up these (and a few extra shades of blue to be on the safe side) for the colour swashes I have just ordered as of writing this.

Fursona Refsheet from the front view with RGB and fur colours and RGB values and fur names for each

Now the most important part of — the head itself. I don’t really want to turn my uni accommodation into a tip by carving foam so head base it is. There are relatively few UK options so I decided upon one from ClawsnRoars as it had high ratings and also movable jaw which was something I wanted and knew would be difficult with foam bases.

The only downside of this base is that it does not include any eyes, only the eye blanks so I’ll have to paint some of the buckram I ordered a while bag and buy some cheap acrylic paints and something for waterproofing but that’s a future endeavour.

I also ordered Whiskers (and a fursuit brush) from A Kindness of Crows since I know I’ll need them later.

I plan to wait till the head base arrives before getting any foam, EVA or upholstery.

Now just to wait for everything to arrive.